The coughing became more intense. Her whole body shook with it. Her limbs were like ice. What was happening to her?
“Come back to me, Amy.”
She was choking. She was going to vomit. The room began to fade. Something else was taking its place. A sharp pain struck her chest, like the blow of a fist. She doubled over, her body curling around the impact. Foul-tasting water poured from her mouth.
“Come back to me, Amy. Come back to me…”
—
“Come back to me.”
Amy’s face was slack, her body still. Michael was counting out the compressions. Fifteen. Twenty. Twenty-five.
“Goddamnit, Greer!” Peter yelled. “She’s dying!”
“Don’t stop.”
“It’s not working!”
Peter bent his face to hers once more, pinched her nose, and blew.
Something clicked inside her. Peter pulled away as her mouth opened wide in a throttled gasp. He rolled her over, slipped an arm beneath her torso to lift her slightly, and pounded her on the back. With a retching sound, water jetted from her mouth onto the deck.
—
There was a face. That was the first thing she became aware of. A face, its features vague, and behind it only sky. Where was she? What had occurred? Who was this person who was looking at her, floating in the heavens? She blinked, trying to focus her eyes. Slowly the image resolved. A nose. The curving shape of ears. A broad, smiling mouth and, above it, eyes that glittered with tears. Pure happiness filled her like a bursting star.
“Oh, Peter,” she said, raising a hand to his cheek. “It is so good to see you.”
* * *
56
All night long, the virals pounded.
It happened in bursts. Five minutes, ten, their fists and bodies slamming against the door—a period of silence, then they would begin again.
Eventually the intervals between the attacks grew longer. The girls gave up their crying and slept, their heads buried in Pim’s lap. More time passed with no sounds outside; finally, the virals did not return.
Caleb waited. When would dawn come? When would it be safe to open the door? Pim, too, had fallen asleep; the terrors of the night had exhausted all of them. He leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes.
He awoke to muffled voices outside; help had arrived. Whoever it was had begun to knock.
Pim awoke. The girls were still asleep. She signed a simple question mark.
It’s people, he replied.
Still, it was with some anxiety that he unbarred the door. He pushed it just a little; a crack of daylight blasted his eyes. He shoved the door open the rest of the way, blinking in the light.
Standing before him, Sara dropped to her knees.
“Oh, thank God,” she said.
Hollis was with her; the two were barefoot, soaked to the bone.
“We were coming to see you when they attacked,” Hollis explained. “We hid in the river.”
Pim lifted the children out and climbed up behind them. Sara embraced her, weeping. “Thank God, thank God.” She knelt and drew the girls into her arms. “You’re safe. My babies are safe.”
Caleb’s relief melted away. He realized what was about to happen.
“Kate,” Sara yelled. “Come out now!”
Nobody said anything.
“Kate?”
Hollis looked at Caleb. The younger man shook his head. Hollis stiffened, wavering on his feet, the blood draining from his face. For a moment Caleb thought his father-in-law might collapse.
“Sara, come here,” Hollis said.
“Kate?” Her voice was frantic. “Kate, come out!”
Hollis grabbed her around the waist.
“Kate! You answer me!”
“She’s not in the hardbox, Sara.”
Sara thrashed in his arms, trying to break free. “Hollis, let me go. Kate!”
“She’s gone, Sara. Our Kate is gone.”
“Don’t say that! Kate, I’m your mother, you come out here right now!”
Her strength left her; she dropped to her knees, Hollis still holding her around the waist. “Oh, God,” she moaned.
Hollis’s eyes were closed in anguish. “She’s gone. She’s gone.”
“Please, no. Not her.”
“Our little girl is gone.”
Sara lifted her face to the heavens. Then she began to howl.
—
The light was soft and featureless; low, wet clouds blotted the sun. Peter lifted Amy into the vehicle’s cargo bay and put a blanket over her. A bit of color had flowed back into her face; her eyes were closed, though it seemed she was not asleep but, rather, in a kind of twilight, as if her mind were floating in a current, the banks of the world flowing past.